Taiyou ni iku
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: A man goes on a journey to find his home.


**Fandom: Full Metal Alchemist  
Title: Taiyou ni iku. (Going to towards the sun.)  
Rating: PG  
Description - A man goes on a journey to find his home.**

**Disclaimer - Full Metal Alchemist doesn****'****t belong to me.  
**

The desert  
waits for the single day of rain.  
I've looked a million years for you  
to find the truth  
that neither man or god

cannot explain to me.

**Taiyou ni iku. (Going to towards the sun.)  
By miyamoto you  
**  
Where am I?  
What am I doing here?  
Who am I?

As I rose up and looked up to the sun while shielding my eyes from the glare of the sand, I was haunted by the past that never seemed to let me rest. I just closed my eyes to see nightmares and that was where all my hopes started to rise and die like flowers blooming on a field. There were the wild flowers that never seemed to get anywhere but I tried to grow them so that I could say that I did something with my life.

The pain wouldn't stop as I looked at my body, but there were no wounds to show of their existence. The pain that I held was rooted within myself. Was I driven to insanity, I wonder.

Passing by towns, trains, and multitudes of people, I became more and more distressed, almost distracted from the goal that began to erase away by itself. I was trying to reach out to people, but the more withdrawn I came to be within myself. I was trying so hard to understand why was it that people were so inconsiderate? Why were they so selfish? No matter how much you thought about other people, unless they wanted to care, they still had their damned free will to tell me that I can only help myself no matter how much you helped them.

I was trying to walk on water. I was trying to stop wars. I was trying to sing a song to revolutionize the world.

It never seemed to be enough.

As I find myself in slow motion and catching myself before the fall, I see that I've not prepared long or hard enough. There was not enough to hold the impact of the flow or the oncoming blow.

I tugged on my hood of my ash-colored cape even more. Maybe if you can't see my face you won't be able to judge me. But that is impossible. Whether I smile or I am mean, you will make your impression of me according to your favor.

So what do I say when I say that I've come home and you don't even recognize me? My own hometown reacts to me as if I'm a foreigner and I look at it as if it never was. Where was the home of my dreams? Wasn't this the place I had always been?

Where had everything gone? Where did everyone go?

Did I change while I was gone? Maybe. Is the perspective I have so different that it isolates me from everyone and everything here? Maybe yes. Did the scenery change? Have the people become different towards me since I've come from "outside"?

Why am I physically here but my mind is nowhere near the place that I held deep inside of my heart?

I look into her eyes and she sings a song for the world that I try to protect. The same one that sends me to fight for the ideals that it always never coincides its principles and morals with.

Where have I gone while I've been away trying to find the truth to his disappearance while sharpening my understanding of alchemy?

Still, I leave on these trips to feel as if I've done something. I want to pretend that I've gone somewhere when I'm so trapped.

Where do I go from here? Where did I come from? Where is the path that I thought I should have been sure of? Why is the it now the place that I can't seem to see? It was never a sure thing, but it was never to feel non-existent as if I was not the way I used to be.

I stumble on this simple walk with the everyday people. You can complain all you want, but my eyes will always be stained. You can talk all you want, but when you see what I've seen, you'll never be able to utter a world about what really is the cruelty and reality of humanity.

Humanity is a concept in itself, can't you see? You take it for granted, as if it is your right to be human.

I'm trying to hold onto it with all of my heart.

You think I'm mad as I run all over the deserts in search of a boy that isn't here anymore, right? You think that it isn't worth to look for someone whose trace wasn't left anywhere but inside my mind?

The seasons change and I still carry on. There is no hope, is there? Hope is a separate entity from myself, isn't it now?

Well, what the hell do you know?! If it weren't for him, you wouldn't be here!

Everyone can learn to condemn the ways of the world along with its people, but they fail to truly see the shortcomings of themselves. Talk doesn't mean a thing when you can't feel anything.

I'm trying to find the one person who deserves to be here on your planet.

His brother is smiling, but I know he's also lost without him. Where is my reflection now? My innocence is tarnished.

I present a faded photograph to everyone I come across. I'm also trying to find a way to open the Gate.  
What the hell do I do in order to get through the desert that seems to engulf me with its sands of time, with its heaviness within my heart, with the glare it gives me as I walk on ahead to find the boy that I love with all of my heart?

They fought a war to see who's best. Those people worshipped a priest who said their god could help them become tranquil within themselves. Those two beings tried to resurrect the philosopher's stone in order to keep their "immortality". The homunculi only wanted to be human.  
And a boy and his brother just wanted to regain what they thought they had lost.

Damn to you all!

Judge all you want. You can complain, but you're still able to live. You eat, you breathe, and you move on.

But what about those of us who have lost the concept of home? How many wars have I fought for you? How many massacres occurred with my hands and inside of my head?

How many times have I died with the people around me?

My friends? Myself? How many times do I have to die in order for any of you to get the point?!

You are all so weak if you don't want to carry on. I am just trying my best to live and keep my sanity.  
That's why I'm trying to find an answer that I know may never be mine to keep and hold onto.

I go around with a picture and a thought with a heart of love coursing through this decaying body.  
You can say I have gone mad. You can do all you want.

But the fact remains is that no matter what time or age we are in, no matter how many people there are, you always look to one person to relieve your pain. You will try to ask someone to be your sacrifice for your sins. You don't care as long as it isn't you. You thank kami-sama that you have been saved.

How stupid people are only to compare their suffering and pray when they feel it is necessary. Then, the rest of the time, they forget everything else except themselves and their needs.

You'll move on because you were not moved. You thought you were, but you only show sympathy that's parallel to almost a shallow affection that never penetrates the depth of the darkness within the bottom of the sea.

I head towards the sun wanting to be burned as long as I tried to find a way. I want to become myself.

I'm only trying to keep myself intact. That is all. That is already enough every day.

I search the lands trying to take up the burdens and the things that can't be forgiven. I take up my own wrongdoings.  
This is my responsibility. This is my privilege in living even if it seems absurd. This is my love in such a twisted fashion.

"You…" I mumble shakily. "…whom I love the most in the world."

I am no better than they are, Edward Nii-san.

What must I sacrifice to get you back here?! What is one more sin to our list if I can have you again?

"I'm so sorry," I quietly whisper with all my sincerity.  
Scrape…dripping blood…mark here, mark there…

When I open my eyes, I am no longer in the desert. I am standing before the Gate. Calmly, I put my hands on its wide doors. "I'll give you whatever you want. Just bring my beloved back to me."

Oni, god, or spirit, thank you for hearing my plead!

The Gate opened and their hands grabbed me. They touched my body, but they slowly tore me away piece by peace..body and mind torn apart…

Before I closed my eyes, I saw you standing before me with a lost expression.

They had given you my freshly-cut heart and you held it so closely. It bleeds in between your white gloves.

"You are home," I proudly said to him in my childish voice as he looked deep into my eyes with tears in his. "Don't cry, Nii-san. I love you."  
"Why is this the only solution, Al? Why did it come to this?"

I shook my head. Don't you know?  
Heart isn't a right; it's a privilege in being human.  
As perverse as it is as well as the freedom it gives, it can only lead to this solution.

But forgive me. I am no better than the foolish, self-proclaimed judges of this world…

"Smile for me, Nii-san."

Through everything, he tried his best to look strong and as handsome as he always was. I took a hold of his long gold ponytail and pulled it. I cupped his blushing cheeks into my cold hands and tilted my head to kiss him deeply on the lips.

"I've caught up to you so that you know that you've not suffered alone."  
And so from this, _no one_ can ever tear us apart. Not even this...

He held my hand for a moment.

Then, they finally took me away. I closed my eyes to become absorbed the warmth of the light that I could feel was only my brother's. I couldn't feel the pain anymore.

"I am home. I am finally home."

**Owari. / The End.**

**Author****'****s note:** The madness continues. As usual, I just write what pops into my head and see what my fingers type out. (Seranother bad writer's block.) This time, I really don't know why or what happened, but I wanted to riously, I am on each something deep inside of myself, the anger and frustration that seems to eat me alive as of the moment.

I had first made this for Gundam Seed's Athrun. Then, I changed it to Colonel Mustang's perspective when I made the rough draft, but I thought, "Wouldn't it be trippy if I just made it from Al's perspective?" And so I tried to make this ficlet fit Al. Yes, it is sad and it is frustrating. But I think it's an okay AU if you take it from the perspective that Al has "grown up" and knows more. Whether he knows what happened those years that have been erased from his head or not is up to you.

I hope I have made you think. And I hope you have enjoyed this strange piece, Rosevine-san! ^_^

Love,  
Yui  
**  
December 24, 2004, 2:55 AM**


End file.
